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| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | William Graham Carr | ||
| Date of birth | (1944-10-25)25 October 1944 (age 80) | ||
| Place of birth | Corbridge, England | ||
| Position(s) | Half back | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1962–1968 | Northampton Town | 85 | (0) |
| 1968–1969 | York City | 33 | (1) |
| 1969–1970 | Bradford Park Avenue | 42 | (2) |
| Altrincham | |||
| Telford United | |||
| Poole Town | |||
| Dartford | |||
| Tonbridge | |||
| Weymouth | |||
| Total | 160 | (3) | |
| Managerial career | |||
| Dartford | |||
| 1977–1978 | Weymouth | ||
| 1978–???? | Dartford | ||
| 1981–1985 | Nuneaton Borough | ||
| 1985–1990 | Northampton Town | ||
| 1990 | Blackpool | ||
| 1991 | Maidstone United | ||
| 1992–1995 | Kettering Town | ||
| 1995 | Weymouth | ||
| 1995–1996 | Dagenham & Redbridge | ||
| *Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
William Graham Carr (born 25 October 1944) is an English former professionalfootballer, manager and scout. He is currently an associate director forNorthampton Town.[1]
Carr, a half-back, joined his first professional club, Northampton Town in August 1962 and captained their reserve side before breaking into their first team. He played 27 times in Northampton's only season in theFirst Division. He moved toYork City in June 1968 and then toBradford Park Avenue in July 1969 where he was a regular in their final season in theFootball League.
After leaving Bradford he moved into non-league football withAltrincham andTelford United, with whom he won anFA Trophy winners medal in 1971. He later played forPoole Town andDartford, with whom he won theSouthern League and gained anFA Trophy runners-up medal in 1974.
Carr's first job in management was as player-manager atDartford. He briefly left management to play forTonbridge andWeymouth before being appointed player-manager of Weymouth in January 1977.
He resigned in 1978 to manage Dartford and later managedNuneaton Borough until 1985 when he left to become manager of his first clubNorthampton Town. He ledthe Cobblers to theFourth Division title in the 1986–87 season. However, the title winning side's leading scorerRichard Hill was sold toWatford and his strike partnerTrevor Morley toManchester City and Carr's subsequent sides struggled for goals and went from being a free-scoring attacking side to a negative one relying on the offside trap.
He was sacked from Northampton in May 1990 after their relegation back to the Fourth Division, taking over atBlackpool, who had been relegated along with Northampton, the following month. He had a torrid time at Blackpool, where he was never popular with the home fans, who took to spitting on the dugout during home games, especially after letting the previous season's player of the year,Colin Methven, sign forWalsall, saying he was neither good enough nor quick enough for Fourth Division football.[2] He was sacked on 30 November after Blackpool were beaten 4–0 away toTranmere Rovers in theFootball League Trophy three days earlier. He was, until Michael Appleton in 2012, Blackpool's shortest-serving manager, with just sixteen Football League matches in charge.
In February 1991 Carr was appointed as manager ofMaidstone United, who had just sackedKeith Peacock following a run of poor results. Carr's time at Maidstone was also unhappy; a series of poor signings and baffling tactical decisions saw the team slump towards the foot of the table, and the Maidstone fans chanting for the board to sack him, which they did in October 1991, less than a year before theKent side were forced to resign from theFootball League.
Carr took over as manager ofKettering Town in September 1992, with the club in administration and under the threat of a winding-up order. Despite these off the field problems, Carr led the club to mid-table safety in theFootball Conference. Kettering came out of administration in the summer of 1993 and Carr built on the relative success of the previous season, taking the side to within three points of the Conference title. He left Kettering at the end of the 1994–95 season after losing the fans' support, despite Kettering finishing sixth in the Conference.
He was not out of work for long, returning to Weymouth as manager on 12 May 1995, but resigned in September the same year.
Carr joined Dagenham and Redbridge in the autumn of 1995 following the sacking of Dave Cusack but he was sacked three games before the end of the season, having led the side to relegation.
He was briefly appointed assistant Manager atDoncaster Rovers.
In more recent times, he has built a good reputation as a scout forTottenham Hotspur working underDavid Pleat, and sinceManchester City andNotts County both places working underSven-Göran Eriksson.[3] In February 2010 he left his second stint at Spurs to joinNewcastle United as their chief scout following the reign ofDennis Wise. Newcastle were promoted back to thePremier League in April 2010 and Carr was central to helping managersChris Hughton andAlan Pardew (who replaced the sacked Hughton in December 2010) sign players from the French, Dutch and German leagues such asHatem Ben Arfa,Yohan Cabaye,Sylvain Marveaux,Papiss Cissé andCheick Tioté,[4] which helped turn the club's fortunes around. As a result, they finished fifth in the Premier League in the 2011–12 season,[4] which led to qualification for the2012–13 Europa League. In June 2012, Carr was rewarded for this work with a new eight-year contract with his hometown club, a deal which would have kept him at the club until he was aged 75 years.[4] However, in June 2017 his contract was terminated by mutual consent.[5]
In August 2017, Carr returned to his former club Northampton Town to take up a role as an associate director.[1]
Carr is the father of comedianAlan Carr.[6] Their relationship and his son's upbringing in Northampton were serialised on a semi autobiographical comedy television series "Changing Ends" on British channelITV.